and do they know? (it's like i'm losing my mind)
by confusingtimelessnessandtime
Summary: Winn's morning was actually going surprisingly well, what with the burnt toast, terrible coffee, and the vaguely depressing song stuck in his head, until he found a message from his father on his desk. That was when it all fell apart in front of the two people whose opinions he cared about the most. / Possible trigger warning for anxiety attacks, set during 1x10, Childish Things.


**When you read "Sondheim's _Losing My Mind_ ," think "Jeremy Jordan's cover of Sondheim's _Losing My Mind_." It's important that you see it on Youtube. **

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Winn woke up three minutes before his alarm, and that was the first sign that today was going to be a good day.

This wouldn't have made much sense to anyone else, he knew. As a kid, he hadn't had much time to sleep in - foster families, always in want of chores and gratitude, hadn't had much patience for him sleeping past eight - and it was important to him now that he lived alone that he had some time to lie around in bed. He had subtly mentioned something of the sort to Kara a week before she had told him exactly how _out of this world_ she really was, and she had given him a confused little frown that said more than any words could have that she didn't get it. She had mentioned her foster family once or twice, and Winn had hoped for a moment that he wasn't alone in his experiences.

He doubted that he would let her get to know that part of him, though. Kara, with her perfect sister and her perfect first foster family and her perfect dead alien family, didn't know exactly what humans could do to each other and he wouldn't be the first one to tell her. She was too _good,_ and he couldn't bring himself to tell her anything that would make her look at him like he was one of those starved, beaten dogs on commercials for animal shelters, especially if it was true.

Damn him for thinking about her before he thought about anything important.

Winn couldn't remember if he had enough milk left to make scrambled eggs. He had been running low when he checked the night before, and if he didn't have enough milk to make eggs and coffee (the way it _should_ be made, not the disgusting black liquid that Kara's scary, badass sister probably drank), then he would have to make fried eggs. Fried eggs were good, of course, as all eggs were, but he preferred his scrambled and there wasn't time to buy milk from the grocery store. He could probably swing by after work and pick some up, if he wasn't kept late by anything pressing.

The alarm started beeping at him obnoxiously, and that was what it took to make Winn realise he was dreaming. He opened his eyes again and watched the way his curtains filtered the sunlight for a moment before sitting up.

.

He didn't have enough milk for eggs and coffee after all, but he didn't have enough eggs either. Winn didn't remember putting the carton back empty and it wasn't the sort of thing he would do, but apparently, he'd done it. He could only assume he'd been extremely sleep-deprived at the time.

It would take too much time to pick up anything to eat elsewhere, so he turned on the coffeemaker, started looking around until he found bread, and put it in his notoriously unreliable toaster. He knew he was usually early for work, but early was on time and on time was late, and no one ever kept a job by being late every day.

Under his breath, he started humming Sondheim's _Losing My Mind._ He had been listening to it last night, and it had stuck around in the back of his mind and made him melancholy this morning. Winn wondered, in a vague, unintentional way, what Kara was doing at that moment.

His eyes fell on the toaster and widened in alarm.

His toast was burnt, and it was all he deserved. This was what came of dwelling on hopeless crushes on people who were too good for him. This, blackened toast that he was forced to spread peanut butter on because that was his last damn piece of bread, was what came of it.

He ate it anyways, as a reminder to himself that he had to stop thinking about her. It tasted more like charcoal than bread.

The coffee wasn't much better. Had he really thought that today was going to be a good day?

.

In the public elevator, Winn tapped slow eighth-notes to _Losing My Mind_ with his finger against the strap of his bag. He was alone, but he kept his tapping quiet and as subtle as possible. There were worse ways to deal with mild stress, and the song was still running through his mind as a sort of melancholy soundtrack for his morning.

If it kept up for long enough, he thought, wondering where in the office Kara would be, he might actually lose his mind. That would not be a moment he needed to have at work. Mentally, he ran through a list of excuses to leave his desk for five or so minutes.

 _Bathroom. Refilling my water bottle. Forgot that I needed to speak to Davey about this new operating system. Needed a break before getting started on the next part of the coding. Had to check the supply room to see if we carried whatever Sabine's customer was asking about, since she's on the phone._

He could do this. Today, burnt toast aside, would not be the hell he had built it up to be in his mind. The doors of the elevator slid open with a soft ding, and he stepped out into the office.

It was a beautiful day, as it always seemed to be in National City, and sunlight streamed through the windows. Kara wasn't at her desk, James was either not here yet or in his own office, and Cat Grant was in her throne, observing the office with an expression somewhere between disinterest and disdain. That woman terrified him, and he wasn't ashamed to admit that.

It took a moment to figure out that his desk, adorned as it was with action figures and toys he fidgeted with regularly, was different somehow. The felt toy of a masked man not unlike a more colourful Batman had not been there when he had left the office last night. Cautious, as he always was with toys he didn't buy himself, he nudged it. When he was reasonably satisfied that it wasn't about to blow the office up, he held it up and examined it carefully.

Its stitching was done hastily, but by a practiced hand, Winn noted. The colours were unsettlingly familiar - primarily black, with yellow, brown, and blue - and he knew he had seen something like it before. He couldn't place it, though, and turned his attention to the string on its back.

He could probably tell the difference between toys that were rigged to blow up and toys that weren't, but he was not in an environment where it would be safe for him to experiment with it and make sure, so he put it in his bag. The only place he could go was the concrete office at the end of the hall that he had planned to convert to a meeting place for Kara, James, and himself to talk about secrets. If it were to blow up anywhere, the place it would cause the minimum casualties would be in that abandoned office.

The office, predictably enough, was empty. Half of him didn't really believe that there was a bomb in the toy, but half of him knew that it was entirely plausible and this wasn't as much of an overreaction as it could have been. Winn took a deep breath, then another, and thought, _it's better that it's only me rather than me and everyone in Cat's office._

 _love you sorry,_ he texted Kara, and then to James, whose number he had just gotten last week, _sorry about this but idk what else i could do. minimum damage this way._

It was horribly inadequate. If he'd had more time to think, he'd have prepared beautiful, heartfelt letters about what everyone in his life meant to him. The toy was almost certainly a cruel prank on the murderer's son, and though he didn't want to die today, phoning the police seemed like an overreaction.

Tense and terrified, he pulled the string and waited for an explosion.

No explosion came. Instead, the toy buzzed faintly and a recorded message played. _Son,_ it said, masked in a mockery of a hero, _come see me at our favourite place. I'll be waiting for you._

Hesitantly, he opened his eyes and stared at the toy in disgust. It had to be a prank. Somebody thought it would be fun to screw around with a guy who was related to the guy who killed a bunch of innocent people. Winslow Schott Sr. was still in prison, and he wouldn't be out in Winn's lifetime.

He pulled the string and listened the message for a second time, turning it over and over in his mind. It wasn't the first time he'd been purposely humiliated because of his father, and it wasn't the first time someone had blamed him for the murders. He had received a heartbreaking letter from the mother of Chester Dunholtz's assistant two years ago, and he'd had to take two days off work because he couldn't control his emotions enough to hold a civil conversation.

He couldn't decide which was worse, a prank or a real attempt on his father's part to contact him.

That wasn't true, Winn corrected himself, watching his hands shake and beginning to tap the tempo of _Losing My Mind_ in an attempt to get them to stop. It would have been much worse if it were his father. The toy might really have been a bomb, then. God knew he wasn't above sending bombs to workplaces.

His phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket. James had texted him back, asking, _are you okay? i'm at work but i can come see you on my break if you need me._

Ever chivalrous, that one. Winn kind of hated him for it. Kara, on the other hand, had been her usual adorable concerned self. _winn?_ she had texted, leaving about five messages in his notifications. As he looked at the screen, another came up. _is everything alright? james said he got a weird text from you. i'm getting worried about you._

 _can you please let us know where you are?_

 _give me a sec,_ he typed, trying to fill his lungs with air and look less like a dying fish. It was best not to give Kara too much to be concerned about. Sure, the concern wasn't unwarranted, but he hated when she looked at him like that. _i'll be with you in a moment._

That wasn't what he would say normally, but when he was in times of emotional turmoil and was on the point of getting angry, he tried to keep professional. Using that kind of vocabulary usually helped him to calm down and look at the situation more objectively.

Winn closed his eyes and mentally reviewed his personal list of why getting agitated at his workplace was a bad idea. By the time he was at the bottom, he felt significantly calmer, and he didn't have any new texts. He stowed the toy away in his satchel and tried to pretend he wasn't hyperaware of its presence there.

Kara and James were waiting by his desk, talking quietly with serious faces. This was _so_ not what Winn was hoping for this morning, but life rarely went his way, and he had created this problem himself, so. Before he could start to think about an excuse for the texts, James's eyes flicked up to him.

"Hey," he said, cool as ever, a slight crease of worry in his brows, and Kara whirled around to face him as well. Before she could speak, he continued, "What was going on with those texts?"

"Right," Winn said awkwardly, and gave them one of the least sincere smiles he'd ever smiled. He felt fake, and from the unimpressed look on James's face, he looked it too. As he spoke, he sat down in his chair and spun it around three times. "Uh, I thought something was going to turn into something bigger than it really was and I thought you might get involved so I figured I should give you a heads-up but then I was distracted before I could type the rest and then I forgot I'd texted you and by the time I remembered to check my phone it was all done and you didn't have to be involved at all."

He was rambling now, and closed his mouth to avoid saying anything else embarrassing and half-truthful. He had always been a horrible liar. The only lies he could ever tell were lies of omission, and that was only with all the practice he'd had. The girl he cared about and the guy she cared about probably thought he was a bit insane now.

Kara's slightly startled, mostly deeply concerned look hadn't faded much, and though it was cute when she looked at other people like that, she really needed to stop being so concerned about him. Her eyes were pretty when she didn't squint them like that. James looked as though he couldn't decide whether to be amused or worried.

"Basically, everything got solved and I'm dramatic over text," Winn summarised his horrible, spur-of-the-moment excuse. If he were tested on it, none of his facts would hold up, and he was sure that both of them knew it. Kara opened her mouth to ask him a question, but he pointed at Cat Grant's office over her shoulder. "Is that, uh, Lucy Lane?"

"Yeah, it is," James confirmed. "I'm not exactly sure what's happening, since Cat hates Lois and I would assume that includes Lucy, but -" he shrugged.

Winn opened his inbox, half-looking forward to and half-dreading the work that awaited him today. The sound of laughter echoed in Cat Grant's office and from behind him, Kara gasped. "That was a genuine laugh! That was not fake, that was real!"

"What do you think they're talking about in there?" James asked, and _really?_ The guy was asking her leading questions like that to spy on his own girlfriend? He wasn't telling her outright to listen in where they were definitely unwelcome, but it was definitely implied.

"Kara does have this handy ability called super hearing," suggested Winn with heavy sarcasm. James wasn't worth getting mad at over someone else's issues and it served as an excellent distraction from Winn's earlier dramatics, but that wasn't a thing someone in a healthy, functional relationship would suggest. Did Lucy not trust him?

Kara gestured uncomfortably towards the office. "Yeah - but - that just feels _wrong,_ doesn't it?"

Winn pretended he was too focused on his work to care very much, and behind him, James leaned a bit closer to her.

"Is that wrong?" she asked, as though pleading for someone to tell her that it was.

"Do it," James whispered, and _now_ he was telling her outright to eavesdrop. Honestly, he hoped that guy sorted out whatever trust issues he and Lucy had soon. Kara nodded and, presumably, used her super hearing.

"Can I turn this up?" asked Davey from tech support, his eye caught on the news on the screen above him. Winn gave him a slight nod, barely interested, until the word _Toyman_ caught his ear. His stomach went cold, and his chest started to feel tight.

 _"...escaped from the Van Kull maximum security prison this morning,"_ the anchorwoman informed them, and screw Davey from tech support and his interest in this story, screw James and his issues, screw Kara and her hearing, and screw whoever else might be watching him. Winn snatched the remote back from Davey, who looked alarmed and a little offended, and muted it again.

The toy was from his father after all. Winn's father was out of prison and looking to see him. God forbid he ever come to the realisation that the reason he didn't receive letters or visitors was that _no one wanted to see him._ His skin felt too hot, too tight, and he tried to keep control of his breathing as he turned around and left his desk without an excuse. _Damn_ it, Kara and James saw his face when he turned around and were whispering to each other about what could possibly be wrong.

He had been so wrong this morning. This day was a disaster already, and it was only ten past nine. Winn went through the melody to _Losing My Mind_ in his head and tried not to give into the anxiety pressing at his chest and pricking at his eyes.

It may not have been very subtle, but consciously deciding to tap eighth-notes on the side of his neck helped somewhat. Subtlety was the least of his concerns at this point - making sure he didn't have an anxiety attack at work in front of the two people whose opinions mattered most to him was more important.

This was bad. This was _very_ bad. His father wanting to see him could lead to nothing good. The last time he had seen his father, it had been in a courtroom, and he had been in the back row, pretending he wasn't the murderer's son in order to hear the verdict first. His father had caught his eye as he was escorted out and smiled knowingly. He had known that Winn was there, eleven years old and skipping school to watch his father being sentenced for murder, and he was still coming after him.

He couldn't afford to be angry or panicked, today of all days. A glance over at Kara told him that she and James were talking with Lucy, who was serving as an excellent distraction. Lucy meant that Kara didn't have to see him like this, wound-up and close to snapping. He couldn't allow himself to show any sign of anger, especially not around her. The way Kara got angry, she became indignant, then calm and cool-headed until it was solved, then she could talk it out with either him or Alex. The way the men in Winn's family got angry, they were quiet until they reached their breaking point and lost any sense of rationality.

Kara's eyes landed on him again, and he might have loved her a bit but he hated that look on her face. Winn gave her a tight smile he hoped didn't look as sarcastic as it felt. His skin was hot beneath the surface, and his hands were sweating, clasped behind his neck and tapping. She smiled back uncertainly.

This day couldn't possibly get any worse for him.

As soon as he thought that, like that was the cue, a short but intimidating woman and some agents behind her walked right into Catco and declared, "Special Agent Cameron Chase, with the FBI. I'm here for Winnslow Schott Jr."

Kara's eyes darted to him, and now half the office was staring. James was the only one on the entire floor who didn't look like was judging Winn, but he couldn't hold eye contact. No one knew what he came from, what he had in him.

He turned towards Special Agent Chase, who didn't look as hostile as she might have, and pretended he could function like a human being. At least she had remembered the _junior_ part of his name so that his coworkers didn't think he was a murderer.

"That's me," he answered, and out of the corner of his eye, Kara watched him nervously.

She had no idea, and if Winn had it his way, she never would.


End file.
